[Zak Mussig]

Peter,

I just went through the same thing, but it was my boss instead of a client. Walter is right, you DO NOT want to offline in DV, and then recapture your HDV. In my experience HDV has been a huge pain to recapture, and this last time was the least painless, but there always seem to be capture problems. If you are the only one doing this project from start to finish and there’re no other editors or facilities involved, then there’s no reason to capture anything but HDV out of the gate.

Your client is paying you for your experience, not just to be the editing monkey who pulls the levers. I think if you explain that doing it the other way will almost certainly save them time and money, they’ll not only go for it, but be appreciative of not being gouged.

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

rafalaos,

How would you make a 15 fps sequence in FCP 5.1.2? If you look in the Sequence Settings window, the only options for timebase are 60, 59.94, 30, 29.97, 25, 24, and 23.98. If you select 15 fps in the compression (codec) settings window it ignores it and tells you to set that in the Sequence Settings window, where 15 doesn’t seem to be an option. Is there somewhere else to set this or a way to include other options? I said I was unsure, but I’m pretty sure of what I’m looking at… I just don’t like the answer. I would like to be able to make the framerate any arbitrary number if I ever have a special need.

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

Eriq,

Maybe I’m still fuzzy on what it is that you’re trying to do…

Some quick responses to your points:

1) If you try to push the movement too far too fast then FCP won’t play nice with you. At the end of the day it’s still just an editor, not a motion graphics app.

2) I kinda see where you’re coming from in terms of your 15 fps animation (which, after checking, I don’t believe is an option in FCP 5). Unless your stills are jumping across the screen 15 times a second (e.g. you bookend your position keyframes, so that the change takes place over 1 frame rather than being interpolated over many.) aren’t you getting the same effect? If you change the x and y coordinates of something by 4 every 2 frames, isn’t that the same as changing it by 2 every frame? It’s still moving from point A to point B over a set period of time.

Oliver is probably right… you should try using another program for this. AE is good bet if you have it. I like Motion (because I have it and know how to use it, which is what makes it different than AE). With stills that big you’ll run into Motion’s 2K texture limit, so that may not be a great bet either.

If you do this in FCP, yes make a custom sequence the resolution of your stills. All you’re going to do in that sequence is put them in order and get the timing right. Then you’d drop that sequence into another sequence to animate it as a whole. It will run slowly, and make you sad, but that’s the price you pay. I had a bunch of 15 minute or so sequences with high-res images in an HDV timeline (tell me about it). It was a dual 2.5 GHz G5 with 8 gigs of RAM, and the performance was awful.

Now it’s time for coffee… good luck,
Zak

[Zak Mussig]

Depending on what your animation really is, you may be making infinitely more work for yourself then you need to. If you’re just trying to pan and zoom on a still then bring in one copy if it, throw it in your timeline, double-click it to open it up in the viewer and set key frames for the first and last frames on the scale and center parameters, and adjust the values of each keyframe for the beginning and end of your movement.

If you’re using tons of stills because they are frames of an animation, you should A) Go back to whatever program made the animation and try to export an image sequence, and / or B) put them all in one sequence then put that sequence into another one and animate the whole thing (as mentioned above) rather than individual frames. FCP is resolution independent, so make the first sequence whatever resolution your images are, and make the second whatever format you’re exporting to.

I also like to turn keyframes on in the timeline, and set the canvas to image and wireframe view for keyframing.

A quick search in the PDF manual (Help > Final Cut Pro User Manual) can answer an questions about keyframes or how to make and modify them.

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

Jim is right about how to control the duration of the behavior, but you could still find some problems adjusting the “speed” of your movement. You’re dealing with more of the perceived magnitude of the effect than the speed of it. Set your grow/shrink behavior to the length you want your picture to be, and adjust the amount of growth or shrinking you want until the “speed” of the effect feels right.

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

FCP 4.5 was part of the “Production Suite” package that preceded FCS. That would have been DVDSP version 3. Depending on your system specs, I would suggest you get the upgrade version of FCS. You may be able to find DVDSP 3 on eBay or something like that if that’s as far as you’re looking to go.

Hope that helps,
Zak

[Zak Mussig]

What I’ve started doing with a lot of clips I send to Motion is to open it in the viewer and overwrite a duplicate video clip on the next track above. I use the Send to Motion command on the upper clip. I’ve also been doing a lot of graphics that I want to lay on top of FCP clips with effects – which don’t go to Motion – so I’m doing this more to have my clip in Motion to animate with, but have my graphics on top of my clip when I get back to FCP.
That may be an option if you really want to keep track of both the original and your Soundtrack project in the same timeline.

You could also do a match frame on the accompanying video (if it’s in your timeline) and bring just the audio back into your sequence.
Hope that helps,
Zak

[Zak Mussig]

This isn’t really an FCP issue… but a couple of things come to mind.

1) It’s already been said, but HDVCPro is not a format… it’s HDV or it’s DVCPro HD.

2) I’d be really surprised if you could get acceptable playback of either of those formats from a 1 GHz G4 (a MacBook Pro would make a BIG difference).

3) Your audio may not be playing back because of your DVI to HDMI converter… HDMI carries both the audio and video over one cable so, unless you can tell your TV to get the signals over different inputs via some menu or button on your remote, you may be SOL.

Are you saying you exported a self-contained movie, then opened it in FCP to play out to TV? Try opening it in QT via the contextual menu.

You have two very different issues here: Getting AV signals from your Mac to your TV / Entertainment center, and getting your project exported to an existing format that your PowerBook (nothing with a G4 is a “MacBook”) can actually play back. Try solving them separately.

Good Luck,

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

I’d imagine you could just take all of the clips in your timeline offline, change your sequence setting and just reconnect to the already captured HDV versions of your media. Can anyone think of problems with that?

Zak

[Zak Mussig]

He was referring to the file system on your drive. A Mac will read and write to a LaCie drive out of the box, but I believe it’s pretty important to format them to Mac OS Extended (HFS+ right?) with Disk Utility before actually using them. If the drive is new and has nothing on it then you should do this and try again to capture.

What format are you capturing? When you say it won’t capture, does it go through all of the motions and then finish but still shows the footage as offline? Does it tell you it can’t “see” your camera? eMacs aren’t built to handle this stuff too well, so the more information you could give the better someone might be able to shed some light on your situation.

Zak